MacDill dodges base closure bullet

Friday, May 13, 2005

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MacDill Air Force Base will continue to be a major military installation.
The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) report is out, and overall the news is good for Florida.

The report recommends that all major military bases in Florida, including MacDill Air Force Base, remain open.

Personnel at MacDill don't escape unscathed, however.

At MacDill, 292 military personnel will lose their jobs, but 162 military members will join the base, for a net loss of 130 military jobs.

The government will also add 231 new civilian jobs at MacDill. A hospital will be eliminated, but a clinic will be developed in its place.

More about base closures
	Click here for a list of Florida bases and the action taken on each. Click here for a state-by-state list of base closures.

At least four KC135 aircrafts will be added to the base by 2009.

"It's great news for us at this point," said Ken Sheely of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce. "From the chamber's perspective, this is bigger than the biggest corporate relocation that we could have ever expected."

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio pointed to the Air Force at MacDill as a deciding factor in keeping the base open.

"We have to thank the Air Force base," she said. "It's because of the importance of the Air Force base, because of the important work that they do for our country and its special place that it holds here in the Tampa Bay community that the good news has come today."

Millions of dollars in construction continues to take place around MacDill.

St. Pete base on closure list

The Naval Reserve Center is in downtown St. Petersburg.
Two installations in Florida are on the Pentagon list for proposed closure. They are the Naval Reserve Center in St. Petersburg and the Defense Finance and Accounting Services in Orlando, which employees 209 people.

If the Naval Reserve Center in downtown St. Petersburg closes, 12 jobs would be lost, but base officials say the 12-member staff would likely be reassigned.

"St. Petersburg has been here for a while as a drilling center, but carrying us forward into the 21st century, it makes sense to realign and recapture some funds and do what we need to do to be smart with the taxpayers' money," said Commander Jeff Nichols of the Naval Reserve Center.

Also in Florida, Pensacola Air Station will be realigned and will lose more than 300 military jobs and 1,180 civilian jobs.

Al Austin, who chairs the governor's council on BRAC, said the group will continue to fight for Florida bases until the BRAC process is complete.

"We're committed to helping any base in Florida that needs help," Austin said. "And we know through this process that what's happened today is just a prelude to changes that could occur over the next few months."

Nationwide, 33 major bases will close and 29 will be realigned.

The BRAC recommendations are not final. The military bases slated for closure or realignment will have an opportunity to plead their cases before various commission hearings.

The recommendations will be reviewed by the Pentagon's Base Closure Commission on Sept. 8 before being submitted to the White House. If approved by President Bush, the report will head to Congress for a vote.